Inside Out Man, Sam/Dean (2/4)
Jun. 12th, 2015 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlFic title: Inside Out Man, Part 2/4
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist name:sarahtoga
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
He’s still got his Docs on, but he’s got a new pair of jeans, and this pair fits. They’re not overly tight, but they hug the curves of his hips and accentuate his narrow waist. Instead of an oversized tee shirt, he’s wearing a simple white tank top, and underneath… Underneath he has on a bra, his small breasts pushed up and the hint of cleavage. It’s all quite plain, and yet the very simplicity makes it provocative. His bare arms and shoulders are dusted with freckles.
“Oh,” Sam says.
Dean looks at him quizzically, like he’s waiting for something else. When Sam stays silent, he shrugs and goes into the bathroom.
Sam thinks about a hundred things he could say and can’t decide on any of them.
When Dean comes out, he has dark smudges around his eyes and his mouth is glossed red. He’s strikingly, ridiculously gorgeous.
Sam just stares.
“Well,” Dean says finally, “if you can’t beat ’em…” He tries for a smirk, but doesn’t quite pull it off.
“I don’t—what are you—I—”
“I’m goin’ out, what does it look like?” Dean says, trying to shove his wallet into the smaller pocket of his new jeans. “Unless you have a better idea?”
Sam just shakes his head dumbly.
Dean shrugs. “There’s a bar in town that caters to girls lovin’ girls, so that’s where I’m headed. Always wanted to know what that was like, so now’s my chance.”
He winks at Sam, and strides across the room and out the door before Sam can stop gaping.
He’s gone for five hours. Sam watches two movies that he barely sees, takes a shower, and forces himself to at least lie down. Sleep is out of the question.
“Surprised you’re still awake,” Dean says when he comes back, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s any other Friday night and Dean just went out to get laid. Sam should be used to it; it shouldn’t be any different.
“So?” Sam hears himself say. He’s irrationally annoyed, even though he knows he has no right. Too many hours of worry, too much weirdness. And now that the stupid witch threw Sam’s attraction to his brother out in the open, there’s a niggling kernel of jealousy, too, even if that makes absolutely no sense.
“So, what?” Dean counters, digging his wallet out of his back pocket and tossing his keys on the table.
“So, how was it?”
That gets him a patented Dean Winchester smirk. It looks as sexy on his face now as it ever has. “It was fucking awesome. Multiple orgasms, Sammy. It’s not fake.”
Sam gets a mental image that he definitely shouldn’t have, and resolutely pushes it down. He tries to work up some enthusiasm for Dean’s apparent happiness. If he’s managed to find an up side to the curse, Sam should be happy for him, even if he’s selfishly unhappy about it himself.
“Oh, right. I didn’t think it was, but… yeah, glad that worked out for you.”
Dean’s looking at him funny again, head tilted and one eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“Just wondering what’s goin’ through that big brain of yours,” Dean says, and then waits again.
What can he say? I was hot for you when you were a dude and I want you back the way you were?
“Nothing, really.”
There’s a pause, and then Dean sighs, like Sam has somehow disappointed him. “I guess you don’t want details, then.”
“Gross, Dean.”
Dean smiles. “It really wasn’t, but okay, I’ll keep it to myself.”
He changes in the bathroom, like always, except instead of sleeping in his jeans Dean comes out in his tank top and underwear. Sam tries not to look at the dark points of his nipples or the fact that he’s not wearing boxer briefs anymore.
“Does it bother you?” Dean asks the next day, once they’re on the road with no idea where they’re headed.
“Does what bother me?”
“You know what,” Dean snaps, then waves his hand around. “This—me, looking like this.”
“No, of course not,” Sam answers too quickly.
“Right.”
“I mean, no, it doesn’t bother me, but it’s still weird for me, Dean. Don’t you think if it happened to me it would be weird for you?”
Dean shrugs. “Guess so. Never thought about it.”
“I’d probably make an ugly-ass girl.”
Dean half turns to look at him, huffing a laugh. “Yeah, good thing it was me who got cursed, huh?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay, I’m kidding,” Dean says, shifting his hands on the wheel. “Anyway, you’re wrong. You’d make a cute chick, Sammy.”
Sam doesn’t know what to make of that, so he just shakes his head. He doesn’t say, I’m not giving up, I’m going to keep trying to find a way to make this right. He doesn’t say, you’re beautiful like this, but I want my brother back. I want you. He doesn’t say, I’m afraid you’ll decide you like being like this and you won’t ever come back to me. Selfish, he’s selfish. Always has been when it comes to Dean.
They work a few jobs, struggling to get their rhythm back. Dean tosses a knife to Sam in the middle of a fight with a crocotta and it falls short by a foot, landing on the floor with a clatter as the crocotta cackles and gets away.
Dean curses a blue streak all the way to the car, and Sam’s, “It’s not your fault, your arms are just different,” only makes it worse.
They misjudge each other’s height, can’t fall into lockstep. Sparring would probably be a good idea; they need to learn each other’s bodies again. Neither of them suggests it.
They split up when Sam gets a lead about a voodoo practitioner in New Orleans who says he can reverse any curse.
“What part of I can’t do this anymore did you not understand, Sam?” Dean yells when Sam tells him, slamming the gun he was cleaning down on the motel table so hard the floor shakes.
“I didn’t promise I would stop looking,” Sam says, trying to stay calm, “And I won’t. Unless you tell me this is how you want to stay, I’m not giving up.”
“Well, maybe it is!” Dean’s red-faced with anger, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Even a good six inches shorter than Sam, as he is now, he’s intimidating when he’s this furious. “Maybe I’m fucking fine with being the hot chick that I turned out to be and you can’t stand it!”
Sam’s frozen in confusion. “What?”
“I’m sorry if the way I look makes you uncomfortable, Sam, but I can’t help it. Maybe it’s you who just has to deal!”
And with that, he’s throwing his stuff into his duffel and stomping out the door. The Impala screeches a protest as he pulls her onto the highway and floors it.
Fuck it. Sam rents a car and goes to New Orleans alone, checking his phone every half hour for calls. Dean’s a grown man—whatever—he can take care of himself. If he does want to stay this way, Sam will deal. Dean can turn down the cure when Sam finds it, but by god, he’s going to find it.
Except not in New Orleans.
And not in Baton Rouge. And not in San Antonio.
Sam’s in New York City striking out again when Dean finally texts. It’s been nine weeks.
Where are you?
NYC, where are you? You okay?
Boston. Mass General.
Sam’s blood runs cold. He hits the call button, heart pounding triple time. Dean answers on the second ring.
“Dean, what the hell happened?”
There’s a long pause, during which Sam forces himself to stay silent.
“You don’t have to come,” Dean says finally. “I get it, why you wouldn’t want to.”
Sam is throwing things into his duffel with one hand while he talks.
“There’s no reason I wouldn’t want to, you asshole, get that through your thick head! I was trying to give you space because that’s what you wanted, but I—Dean, why would you think that?”
Dean sighs, and then there’s the muffled sound of voices.
“Gotta go,” he says, resigned.
“I’m on my way,” Sam gets out before the call hangs up.
The drive takes a little more than three hours. Sam resolutely does not play out 101 scenarios of Dean severely injured and hovering on the brink of death the entire time.
The information desk tells him someone will be down to speak with him, which makes Sam want to throttle the very nice elderly woman. He manages not to, but she keeps glancing at him nervously while he waits.
Eventually someone comes to get him.
“Your—Dean—is in the psychiatric ward,” she informs him.
“What?” That’s not what Sam was expecting. “Why?”
“I’m sorry. Dean was brought in as a possible attempted suicide.”
Sam has to lean against the wall for a moment to steady himself. “Oh my god.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and puts a reassuring hand on his arm. She’s empathic, trying to help, but Sam wants to push it off anyway. Anger rockets through him—at Dean, for almost leaving him. At whoever cursed him. At the whole fucking world for never giving them a fucking break.
“Dean denies it was a suicide attempt, but the injuries were pretty significant.”
But he’s not dead. And if Dean says he wasn’t trying to die, maybe he wasn’t. “Okay. Can I see him?”
“Him,” the nice young woman echoes, one hand on his arm. “You said you’re Dean’s brother?”
Sam nods.
“So… you’re aware of Dean’s gender dysphoria?”
Sam apparently doesn’t answer quickly enough, so she continues, perhaps thinking he didn’t recognize the term. “When Dean was found at the motel, she was dressed normally, but she says—Dean says she’s a man. Were you aware of this, uh, problem?"
Sam jolts away from her so forcefully that she stumbles back. “This problem? What the hell did you say to him? What do you mean dressed normally? Like if he decided to dress some other way he wouldn’t be normal? What the fuck is the matter with you? Aren’t you supposed to be a medical professional?”
The woman is shaking her head now, telling him to calm down.
“I don’t want to calm down, I want to see my fucking brother—yes, my brother! If that’s who he says he is, who the fuck are you to tell him differently? Now, where is he?”
“Four… four twenty-eight,” she stammers, and Sam doesn’t wait to see what else she has to say. He’s down the hall and bursting through the door in seconds flat.
Dean’s asleep, looking deceptively peaceful in the dim light of the hospital room. He’s wearing a hospital gown, and there’s an IV in his arm and bandages around his wrists.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, and the familiar big green eyes open drowsily.
“Sammy?”
“Yeah, man, it’s me, I’m here. How’re you feeling?”
“Sammy,” Dean says again, his expression fond, momentarily unguarded. “’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
Dean looks more awake now, and he grimaces as he shifts position. “I don’t know.”
Sam sits down on the side of the bed and reaches for the hand that doesn’t have a tube in it.
“Not good enough. You need to be honest with me, man. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. I—please? Just tell me.”
The “please” is a low blow, and he knows it. Dean sighs and turns his head away. That alone tells Sam that he’s going to try to talk; it will be easier that way.
“I tried, Sam. I tried to be okay with it, I really did. I had a lot of hot lesbian sex. I flirted my way into gettin’ a shitload of free stuff… I even tried it with a dude…”
Dean glances back at Sam when he says it, and Sam tries to compose his face into something calm and not something that looks like either shock or jealous anger. Dean did it with a guy? Because he’s a girl, does he think he should be attracted to men now?
“Uh-huh,” he says, so Dean will know he’s listening.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Dean says, his voice quiet. “It’s just—it’s not me, Sam. It’s not my body, it’s not—nothing feels right. It’s not right. I’m not right.”
“I know it’s gotta be hard,” Sam tries, and it sounds so lame. What can he say? He doesn’t know.
“I can’t be something I’m not; I just—I can’t look in the mirror without hating myself!”
Dean’s wide awake now, his eyes wet with unshed tears.
“I just wanted it gone, I wanted it all gone—I wanted to be me again. I can’t be this, Sam, I just can’t…”
“Okay, okay,” Sam says, although clearly nothing is. “We’ll figure it out, I swear, we’ll figure it out. You just—you can’t give up on me, man. Okay?”
Dean nods, and he looks so young and vulnerable it twists Sam’s heart in his chest.
“Can you get me outta here? They don’t—I don’t think they believe me.”
Anger lances through Sam again, but he pushes it down. “Yeah, let’s get outta here. But you’re letting me check your stitches later.”
Dean dresses in the bathroom. When he comes out, he has the hospital gown wrapped around him, too, like he doesn’t want Sam to see him. He slumps against the window of Sam’s rental car while Sam drives, lashes dark fans on his cheeks. They check into the first motel they find.
Dean lies down before Sam can order him to; he doesn’t protest when Sam pulls off the hospital gown and eases up his tank top. A few of the dressings have leaked through, small spots of blood on the white. Dean doesn’t flinch when Sam tugs off the tape and removes them.
It’s hard to see the jagged cuts on Dean’s chest, the deepest circling one breast like he was trying to cut it off. There are gashes on his forearms and thighs, too, and one low on his stomach.
“What were you trying to do?” Sam asks quietly as he changes the dressing. Dean has underwear on, but he’s pulled it down low so Sam can work.
“I don’t know. I just wanted it gone, all of it. Everything that’s not mine.”
Sam nods. “How far did you go?”
Dean looks away. “Not that far. Couldn’t do it. Wanted to.”
“Wanted to what, Dean? What did you want to do?”
“I don’t even know,” Dean admits, his voice small. “I just wanted to cut, wanted to make it all as ugly on the outside as it feels to me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t ask for this, and it’s not your fault. You are who you are.”
Dean flinches at that, more than he did when Sam uncovered his stitched wounds.
“I never knew it was that important, you know? I thought, well, I’m a girl now, so I’ll just be a girl.”
Sam tapes down the dressing as gently as he can. “I don’t think it works like that, Dean. I’m not sure you can talk yourself into being okay with being something you’re not.”
“Guess not,” Dean agrees quietly. “I tried.”
Sam wants badly to kiss him. Dean’s looking at him again, eyes big and green and full of need—for Sam’s understanding. “I know you did,” he says instead. “I haven’t given up on fixing this.”
Dean is silent for a second, and then his expression softens. “And if you can’t?”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
It feels different than every time he’s said it before.
* * *
Dean’s body heals. He’s got scars on his thighs and a jagged red one on his stomach. He cuts his hair short again and digs his old flannel shirts out of the bag in the trunk and wears them over tight tee shirts that flatten his chest. It’s September, the nights crisp enough to warrant two shirts anyway. He rolls up the sleeves during the day, and Sam looks at the crisscrossing lines on his arms and thinks how lucky he is that Dean’s still beside him. That it doesn’t matter to him what Dean looks like; he’s still Dean.
Dean works out more than he ever did before. They run in the morning, Sam pacing himself to Dean’s shorter stride. He takes target practice whenever they can find a safe place, relearning the aim of his own guns and the way his body absorbs the kick differently.
“Spar with me,” Dean insists when it’s almost November. He’s not as strong as Sam—not as strong as he used to be—but he makes up for it by twisting like a wildcat with a flexibility he never had before. Sam’s caught off guard and Dean laughs at him, sitting on Sam’s chest breathless and giddy with a moment of power.
Dean never looks in the mirror.
Sam waits for him to go out and pick someone up, but he never does. Sam is secretly pleased, and feels like shit for it.
Sam doesn’t go out, either. He jerks off in the shower, as quietly as he can. He assumes that’s Dean’s alone time, too, and never knocks on the door when the water’s running.
They take a new case in December.
It’s a salt and burn, and it goes off like clockwork. The ghost doesn’t so much as graze them, the nice young couple who would’ve been goners are grateful, and then Dean is holding a flaming book of matches over the grave, grinning. There’s mud on his face, and smeared across one of his arms, and he looks more content than Sam has seen him in a very long time.
Back at the motel, Sam sits down on one of the beds to pull off his muddy boots.
“Did you see the look on its face?” Dean exclaims. He strips off his muddy shirts and jeans and kicks off his boots, too. “I mean, it never saw us coming!”
Dean’s standing there in his tight white tee shirt and briefs, a smile on his face, when Sam looks up.
It still surprises Sam, sometimes, that Dean looks like that. Maybe more now that they’re back to hunting.
Dean doesn’t move, and Sam drops his gaze, a blush heating his face. So he doesn’t see Dean walk toward him until suddenly he’s standing right there, close enough to touch.
“Sammy,” Dean says, and the tone of his voice sends shivers down Sam’s spine. “What that witch said, that you wanted…”
Ohgod, this can’t be happening. Sam is frozen, afraid to move. Dean can’t be saying what it sounds like.
“If you do,” Dean’s saying, “if you do want… this… you wouldn’t be the only one.”
Sam looks up at that, shocked into forgetting that he shouldn’t. “What?”
Dean’s holding his gaze, a pink blush on his cheeks and his eyes dark. “I said, you wouldn’t be the only one.”
Dean picks up Sam’s hand and places it on his waist, and Sam is struck by how small Dean’s hand is in his own. Dean’s skin is soft, warm. Goosebumps rise under Sam’s palm as he smooths it over the curve of Dean’s hip, and Dean makes a soft sound. “It’s okay,” Dean murmurs, reading Sam’s mind.
Sam’s thumb slips under the band of Dean’s underwear, and Dean shifts restlessly. He puts his hand over Sam’s and slides their joined fingers slowly down, over the scar that’s still there. Sam’s fingertips push into the silky curls below and Dean chokes off a hurt sound.
“You can,” he whispers, like they need to be secret about this, like there’s someone there to hide from. “You can.”
It’s everything Sam’s ever dreamt of in his darkest fantasies, and yet it’s not. It’s so different, so hard to believe this is Dean, that Sam is getting his dream come true even if it looks and smells and feels so different.
Dean pushes their joined hands lower, and ohgod Dean is wet and it’s been forever and Sam’s head is spinning like he’s drunk, fingertips sliding in on instinct. He pushes Dean’s underwear aside, lets Dean guide him deeper. Dean’s thighs are trembling, and Sam needs to hear Dean make that sound again, like Sam’s fingers are putting him in agony, like he can’t stand it.
“Please,” Dean whispers, something he never says, and Sam still can’t believe Dean wants this; why would he want this? Because Sam’s the only one he trusts? Sam’s thoughts derail as Dean slides onto Sam’s lap, his bare thighs spread wide around Sam’s legs, the swell of his breasts in Sam’s face.
“Dean,” Sam gasps, a reminder to them both.
It doesn’t matter. Dean bucks and pushes against Sam’s hand, needy, circling his hips and yanking his tee shirt over his head until there’s nothing in the way of Sam’s face against his breasts.
Sam has thought about this, about taking one of Dean’s small pink nipples in his mouth and worrying at it with his teeth, when Dean’s chest was still flat. Dean used to pinch them when he jerked off, gasping every time he touched himself, so Sam knows it’s a hot spot. Or it used to be. He wonders if that’s changed.
He leans forward to nuzzle between them, then licks tentatively over one bud.
“Ohgod, yes, oh shit yes,” Dean babbles, holding Sam’s head right there with both hands. “Suck it, yes, harder,” he pleads, and Sam does. It’s so much weirder than he thought it would be, no matter that he’s done this with more than one woman. This is his big brother, who has been the closest thing he has to a mother, and Sam’s nursing like a baby while Dean’s riding his fingers, and Sam’s cock is so hard it’s about to burst through his zipper.
“I’m gonna come, ohgod don’t stop, Sam, don’t you fuckin’ stop,” Dean pants, grinding against the heel of Sam’s hand while Sam’s fingers go deep. He cries out when he climaxes, and Sam teases him through it, pulling back to watch Dean’s face go slack with pleasure, lashes fluttering closed. It’s so close to what Sam has wanted to see forever, Sam could almost believe he’ll be splattered in his brother’s come when he looks down.
Dean’s thighs are shaking hard. Breathless and flushed, he finally relaxes. He bends forward and leans his forehead against Sam’s.
“Well, fuck,” he says.
“Good?” Sam asks, surprised to hear his voice come out sounding wrecked.
“Yeah,” Dean says, still catching his breath. “Been a while.”
Sam is fine with only this, more than he ever dreamt of having. But then Dean’s hands are at his zipper and Sam has to bite his own lip to keep from shouting. Dean’s touching him. Dean is touching him.
“You don’t have to,” Sam says, but Dean doesn’t hesitate or answer. Instead, he unbuckles Sam’s belt easily and pops the snap. Sam’s cock springs up as soon as his zipper is down, and Dean takes a moment to look.
For one stomach-flipping second, Sam thinks, Shit, he doesn’t have one anymore. How can Dean do this, when this is how he wishes he still looked?
“Dean, you don’t—”
That shakes Dean out of whatever he was thinking. He stands up to urge Sam out of his pants, kicking them out of the way impatiently, and then pushes him to sit back down. He hesitates for a moment, looking at Sam’s cock standing up stiff and eager, and Sam almost loses his nerve. But then Dean smiles and slips his soaked panties off. Naked, he sits back down across Sam’s thighs. When he spreads his legs Sam can see the wetness there, and his cock jumps; he can’t help it. Sam came to terms a long time ago with the fact that he sometimes likes men (especially his brother), but he’s been with too many women not to have an instinctive reaction to the evidence of Dean’s readiness.
“I know,” Dean says, and then he wraps his small, slim hand around Sam’s dick and begins to stroke him, watching Sam’s face intently. That look of concentration and desire pushes Sam’s excitement even higher. Dean wants him; it’s clear in his face, in the twist of his open mouth and the darkness of his eyes. Sam has never considered that this might go both ways, but maybe now it does. Now that Dean isn’t exactly his brother, maybe it does.
Sam is instantly, embarrassingly, close. He’s leaking all over Dean’s pumping hand, biting his lip to keep from groaning with how good it is.
“Don’t come yet,” Dean whispers, and Sam shakes his head, fingers gripping the bedspread.
“I can’t, it’s too much, I can’t.”
Dean lets him go and Sam nearly cries, but it’s only to grab a condom from his duffel and slide it down Sam’s length.
“Wait, are you—are you sure you—”
That’s all Sam gets out before Dean is straddling his legs again and sitting down and Sam is nearly blacking out because holy fucking shit, what the fuck are they doing? This is for real, too real.
Dean’s as overcome as he is, his eyes practically rolling up in his head as he slides all the way down and then wraps his legs around Sam’s hips.
“Ohgod, feels so fucking good,” Dean whines, trying to get some leverage to move. “C’mon, Sam, come on.”
Sam doesn’t need to be told twice. He can’t even think straight all buried up in Dean’s wet heat, and his hips move of their own accord. Dean hangs on for the wild ride, moaning, his breasts bouncing as Sam jolts him up and down.
“You gonna come again?” Sam wants him to, wants it desperately.
“Yeah, yeah, gonna come again, make me come, Sammy…”
It’s just dirty enough to push Sam over the edge. He loses it as Dean cries out again, loud and uninhibited, his thighs wrapped tightly around Sam’s hips.
When Sam comes back to himself, Dean is still on his lap, his head leaning on Sam’s shoulder as he breathes hard. Sam runs a hand down his brother’s back, feeling the knobs of his spine, the softness of his skin. There’s sweat gathered in the dip of his back. A rush of protectiveness makes Sam warm all over as he runs his fingers through it, spreading the wetness over the round swell of Dean’s ass.
“You okay?”
Dean snorts and stands up, making Sam yelp at the abrupt separation.
“Of course I’m okay,” he snaps, grabbing his underwear and tee shirt from the floor and retreating to the bathroom.
He’s gone so quickly he might as well have shouted, I’m lying.
Sam changes into a tee shirt and sweats and leaves the light on, waiting for Dean to come out of the bathroom. He hears the shower come on and go off, and ten more minutes go by. Dean is hoping Sam will be sound asleep and the room will be dark when he comes out, Sam knows. Another ten minutes and finally his brother’s patience wears thin or his need for sleep wins out.
“There a reason you aren’t sleeping?” Dean asks, though he already knows the answer.
Sam is sitting on the side of his bed.
Dean sighs and crawls into the other one, pulling the sheets up almost to his chin. “Fuck’s sake, Sam, what is it? I can tell you’re not gonna let me get any sleep until you get something off your chest.”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about we talk about the fact that we just had sex?”
Even Sam is shocked that it came out that way. Dean’s eyes are wide open now, but he’s staring at the ceiling.
“You regret it?”
Sam shakes his head. “No.” It’s the truth, god help him.
“Me neither,” pronounces Dean, still looking at the ceiling. “So, case closed, let’s get some shut-eye.”
“But you don’t even—you’ve never—I mean, this is because of the curse, Dean. That explains it for you, but me… this just makes me a creep who’s taking advantage of what happened to you or something.”
Dean rolls to his side and looks at Sam. Nothing like Sam being down on himself to make Dean pay attention.
“That’s why I made the first move, so you couldn’t think that.”
“But, Dean—”
Dean raises himself on one elbow. “Look, Sam, it’s different being in this body, okay? I can’t go out there and pick up random dudes and ask them to fuck me, it’s too… I just can’t. I can’t be that vulnerable or whatever, I don’t know. I don’t know how chicks do it! And it was fun to be with girls, but man, I don’t know, I felt… I felt like I was deceiving them or something. They thought they were with another girl, but I’m not. I don’t know, it just… Everything feels wrong to me, Sam. Everything.”
Sam finds himself inexplicably tearful. “I know. I mean, I can imagine.”
“Except this.”
Sam blinks. “Everything feels wrong except fucking your brother?”
Dean huffs a humorless laugh. “Nobody ever said I wasn’t fucked up.”
“Nobody ever said I wasn’t, either. And I’m not even cursed.”
Dean sighs. “So can I sleep now? Two orgasms kinda take it outta me.”
Sam turns off the light. He listens to Dean roll over, squirming around to get comfortable the same way he always has.
“I didn’t think you liked sleeping with guys,” Sam says a few minutes later. Dean doesn’t answer, either because he’s fallen asleep or because he can’t dispute it.
It’s the curse, Sam thinks, and the thought makes his stomach turn. Dean wouldn’t want this if it weren’t for the curse. Wouldn’t want Sam. What does that make Sam, that he’s willing to do it anyway?
It’s three weeks before it happens again. Sam is nervous every night, alternating between making sure he’s in bed before Dean and trying to stay up until Dean gets into bed. Half the time he doesn’t know if he’s hoping Dean will start something or dreading it. It still feels wrong, but Sam would be lying if he said he didn’t get butterflies every time Dean smiles at him.
Not that he smiles very often. He tries to be “normal,” whatever that is. He listens to Metallica in the car and refuses to consider anything more modern. He won’t let Sam drive unless he’s literally falling asleep at the wheel. When they hunt, he still wants to take the lead and have Sam follow—and Sam still wants to let him.
Two nights after they kill a skinwalker without a scratch on either of them, they’re in a bar in west Texas, tossing back beers and watching two girls in short shorts and cowboy boots dance together, along with every other man in the place. Sam is loose from too many beers and the luxury of a little time between hunts, and even Dean is more relaxed than he usually is in public.
“Gonna hit the head, be right back.”
Dean grunts an acknowledgement, and Sam is on his way back no more than three minutes later. Dean is no longer relaxed.
In fact, he’s in the process of punching a guy in the face. Unfortunately, the guy has two friends who move more quickly than you’d expect for the amount of drinking they’ve been doing.
“Whoa there, little girl,” one of them says, and they’ve got Dean with both arms pinned behind his head. The flannel shirt he had on is on the floor, and his breasts are clearly visible under his tight white tee shirt. He kicks out, but all three evade his boots, and the first guy straightens, holding a hand to his nose.
“Little firecracker, ain’t ya,” he says, laughing as he wipes the blood away. “We like ’em like that, don’t we, boys?”
He gets up in Dean’s face and gropes his chest, leering. Sam catches Dean’s eye then, and the rage he sees there takes his breath away. If Dean were free, Sam has no doubt all three men would be dead. He has to think quickly, because they don’t need a triple murder on their hands. Sam won’t be able to do a curse cure if Dean’s in jail.
“Let her go.”
Dean gapes in shock; it’s the first time Sam has used that pronoun. It stings on Sam’s tongue, and he can tell it cuts Dean to the core.
The bloody-nosed asshole turns around, quickly taking in Sam’s height and the size of his shoulders. His eyes drop to where Sam’s hand is on the gun shoved into the back of his pants.
Asshole isn’t stupid. He steps back and holds his hands out in the universal gesture of acquiescence. “Hey, no harm no foul, dude, we didn’t know she was taken. Let her go, fellas, I guess this here’s her man.”
“Dean,” Sam warns, “Just—let’s get out of here, okay?”
The guys let him go and back away. Sam has his hand over Dean’s where it’s on his gun.
“Don’t, Dean, please. We can’t afford you landing in jail.”
“They—” Dean’s voice is strangled, agonized.
“I saw. I know, but it’s not worth it. C’mon, please, let’s just go.”
Dean lets Sam take his arm and half push him toward the door, but it’s a near thing. He gets in the passenger side and slams the door, and Sam can feel the fury radiating off him. He doesn’t trust himself to drive, and that’s a rarity.
Sam drives in silence for ten miles, hoping that will give Dean time to calm down.
“They were assholes,” he tries, but Dean interrupts him.
“Don’t you ever fucking call me that again.”
“I just wanted to get them away from you, that’s all.”
“Never again,” Dean repeats, and turns away.
Sam feels sick to his stomach, and wishes he could have blown those dicks away.
Dean doesn’t talk again until they stop for the night thirty miles later. Sam catches him staring at his own reflection in the passenger-side window. He’s scowling, poking at his own voluptuous mouth with one finger like he can erase it if he tries hard enough.
When Sam was ten and Dean had hit puberty, it used to annoy the shit out of him that Dean spent so much time looking at himself. He would preen and pout in front of any mirror he could find, practicing the sultry expressions that would have girls (and sometimes grown women and men) panting after him. Sam, all awkward appendages and clumsiness while he waited to grow into his own features, hated his big brother for it. He’d give anything to see Dean proud of his looks now.
The next time Sam suggests they hit the local bar, Dean shakes his head.
“You go ahead if you want. I’m beat. Gonna watch some bad TV.” He kicks off his boots and settles on the bed near the door with the remote.
Sam remembers west Texas. “Nah, that sounds like a better idea anyway. I’ll go out for a beer run. Doritos? Salsa?”
Dean grins. “You know me so well, Sammy.”
His smile makes Sam’s stomach flip and his fucked-up dick twitch. He comes back with two different kinds of tortilla chips and salsa, and Dean’s favorite brand of beef jerky. They watch one of the Underworld movies, and Sam could almost believe things were back to normal if Dean’s head didn’t end up just the right height to fall onto Sam’s shoulder when he gets drowsy.
“Sorry,” Dean mumbles when he jerks awake, sitting up straighter.
“’sokay,” Sam says, hating the way Dean feels like he has to apologize. Hating the sudden reminder that nothing is normal, and maybe it never will be again.
Dean gets up and goes to the bathroom, then settles himself on the bed next to Sam again.
“You wanna watch something else?” Sam asks, as the credits roll.
Dean turns to look at him, and Sam’s heart lurches in his chest. Dean’s eyes are dark, smudged at the corners with that stuff Sam thought he threw away in disgust. His mouth is red and shiny, looking like an invitation to sin.
“Not really,” Dean says, and Jesus Christ, his brother is flirting with him.
Part Three
Author name:
runedgirlArtist name:
sarahtogaPairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC17
He’s still got his Docs on, but he’s got a new pair of jeans, and this pair fits. They’re not overly tight, but they hug the curves of his hips and accentuate his narrow waist. Instead of an oversized tee shirt, he’s wearing a simple white tank top, and underneath… Underneath he has on a bra, his small breasts pushed up and the hint of cleavage. It’s all quite plain, and yet the very simplicity makes it provocative. His bare arms and shoulders are dusted with freckles.
“Oh,” Sam says.
Dean looks at him quizzically, like he’s waiting for something else. When Sam stays silent, he shrugs and goes into the bathroom.
Sam thinks about a hundred things he could say and can’t decide on any of them.
When Dean comes out, he has dark smudges around his eyes and his mouth is glossed red. He’s strikingly, ridiculously gorgeous.
Sam just stares.
“Well,” Dean says finally, “if you can’t beat ’em…” He tries for a smirk, but doesn’t quite pull it off.
“I don’t—what are you—I—”
“I’m goin’ out, what does it look like?” Dean says, trying to shove his wallet into the smaller pocket of his new jeans. “Unless you have a better idea?”
Sam just shakes his head dumbly.
Dean shrugs. “There’s a bar in town that caters to girls lovin’ girls, so that’s where I’m headed. Always wanted to know what that was like, so now’s my chance.”
He winks at Sam, and strides across the room and out the door before Sam can stop gaping.
He’s gone for five hours. Sam watches two movies that he barely sees, takes a shower, and forces himself to at least lie down. Sleep is out of the question.
“Surprised you’re still awake,” Dean says when he comes back, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s any other Friday night and Dean just went out to get laid. Sam should be used to it; it shouldn’t be any different.
“So?” Sam hears himself say. He’s irrationally annoyed, even though he knows he has no right. Too many hours of worry, too much weirdness. And now that the stupid witch threw Sam’s attraction to his brother out in the open, there’s a niggling kernel of jealousy, too, even if that makes absolutely no sense.
“So, what?” Dean counters, digging his wallet out of his back pocket and tossing his keys on the table.
“So, how was it?”
That gets him a patented Dean Winchester smirk. It looks as sexy on his face now as it ever has. “It was fucking awesome. Multiple orgasms, Sammy. It’s not fake.”
Sam gets a mental image that he definitely shouldn’t have, and resolutely pushes it down. He tries to work up some enthusiasm for Dean’s apparent happiness. If he’s managed to find an up side to the curse, Sam should be happy for him, even if he’s selfishly unhappy about it himself.
“Oh, right. I didn’t think it was, but… yeah, glad that worked out for you.”
Dean’s looking at him funny again, head tilted and one eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“Just wondering what’s goin’ through that big brain of yours,” Dean says, and then waits again.
What can he say? I was hot for you when you were a dude and I want you back the way you were?
“Nothing, really.”
There’s a pause, and then Dean sighs, like Sam has somehow disappointed him. “I guess you don’t want details, then.”
“Gross, Dean.”
Dean smiles. “It really wasn’t, but okay, I’ll keep it to myself.”
He changes in the bathroom, like always, except instead of sleeping in his jeans Dean comes out in his tank top and underwear. Sam tries not to look at the dark points of his nipples or the fact that he’s not wearing boxer briefs anymore.
“Does it bother you?” Dean asks the next day, once they’re on the road with no idea where they’re headed.
“Does what bother me?”
“You know what,” Dean snaps, then waves his hand around. “This—me, looking like this.”
“No, of course not,” Sam answers too quickly.
“Right.”
“I mean, no, it doesn’t bother me, but it’s still weird for me, Dean. Don’t you think if it happened to me it would be weird for you?”
Dean shrugs. “Guess so. Never thought about it.”
“I’d probably make an ugly-ass girl.”
Dean half turns to look at him, huffing a laugh. “Yeah, good thing it was me who got cursed, huh?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay, I’m kidding,” Dean says, shifting his hands on the wheel. “Anyway, you’re wrong. You’d make a cute chick, Sammy.”
Sam doesn’t know what to make of that, so he just shakes his head. He doesn’t say, I’m not giving up, I’m going to keep trying to find a way to make this right. He doesn’t say, you’re beautiful like this, but I want my brother back. I want you. He doesn’t say, I’m afraid you’ll decide you like being like this and you won’t ever come back to me. Selfish, he’s selfish. Always has been when it comes to Dean.
They work a few jobs, struggling to get their rhythm back. Dean tosses a knife to Sam in the middle of a fight with a crocotta and it falls short by a foot, landing on the floor with a clatter as the crocotta cackles and gets away.
Dean curses a blue streak all the way to the car, and Sam’s, “It’s not your fault, your arms are just different,” only makes it worse.
They misjudge each other’s height, can’t fall into lockstep. Sparring would probably be a good idea; they need to learn each other’s bodies again. Neither of them suggests it.
They split up when Sam gets a lead about a voodoo practitioner in New Orleans who says he can reverse any curse.
“What part of I can’t do this anymore did you not understand, Sam?” Dean yells when Sam tells him, slamming the gun he was cleaning down on the motel table so hard the floor shakes.
“I didn’t promise I would stop looking,” Sam says, trying to stay calm, “And I won’t. Unless you tell me this is how you want to stay, I’m not giving up.”
“Well, maybe it is!” Dean’s red-faced with anger, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Even a good six inches shorter than Sam, as he is now, he’s intimidating when he’s this furious. “Maybe I’m fucking fine with being the hot chick that I turned out to be and you can’t stand it!”
Sam’s frozen in confusion. “What?”
“I’m sorry if the way I look makes you uncomfortable, Sam, but I can’t help it. Maybe it’s you who just has to deal!”
And with that, he’s throwing his stuff into his duffel and stomping out the door. The Impala screeches a protest as he pulls her onto the highway and floors it.
Fuck it. Sam rents a car and goes to New Orleans alone, checking his phone every half hour for calls. Dean’s a grown man—whatever—he can take care of himself. If he does want to stay this way, Sam will deal. Dean can turn down the cure when Sam finds it, but by god, he’s going to find it.
Except not in New Orleans.
And not in Baton Rouge. And not in San Antonio.
Sam’s in New York City striking out again when Dean finally texts. It’s been nine weeks.
Where are you?
NYC, where are you? You okay?
Boston. Mass General.
Sam’s blood runs cold. He hits the call button, heart pounding triple time. Dean answers on the second ring.
“Dean, what the hell happened?”
There’s a long pause, during which Sam forces himself to stay silent.
“You don’t have to come,” Dean says finally. “I get it, why you wouldn’t want to.”
Sam is throwing things into his duffel with one hand while he talks.
“There’s no reason I wouldn’t want to, you asshole, get that through your thick head! I was trying to give you space because that’s what you wanted, but I—Dean, why would you think that?”
Dean sighs, and then there’s the muffled sound of voices.
“Gotta go,” he says, resigned.
“I’m on my way,” Sam gets out before the call hangs up.
The drive takes a little more than three hours. Sam resolutely does not play out 101 scenarios of Dean severely injured and hovering on the brink of death the entire time.
The information desk tells him someone will be down to speak with him, which makes Sam want to throttle the very nice elderly woman. He manages not to, but she keeps glancing at him nervously while he waits.
Eventually someone comes to get him.
“Your—Dean—is in the psychiatric ward,” she informs him.
“What?” That’s not what Sam was expecting. “Why?”
“I’m sorry. Dean was brought in as a possible attempted suicide.”
Sam has to lean against the wall for a moment to steady himself. “Oh my god.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and puts a reassuring hand on his arm. She’s empathic, trying to help, but Sam wants to push it off anyway. Anger rockets through him—at Dean, for almost leaving him. At whoever cursed him. At the whole fucking world for never giving them a fucking break.
“Dean denies it was a suicide attempt, but the injuries were pretty significant.”
But he’s not dead. And if Dean says he wasn’t trying to die, maybe he wasn’t. “Okay. Can I see him?”
“Him,” the nice young woman echoes, one hand on his arm. “You said you’re Dean’s brother?”
Sam nods.
“So… you’re aware of Dean’s gender dysphoria?”
Sam apparently doesn’t answer quickly enough, so she continues, perhaps thinking he didn’t recognize the term. “When Dean was found at the motel, she was dressed normally, but she says—Dean says she’s a man. Were you aware of this, uh, problem?"
Sam jolts away from her so forcefully that she stumbles back. “This problem? What the hell did you say to him? What do you mean dressed normally? Like if he decided to dress some other way he wouldn’t be normal? What the fuck is the matter with you? Aren’t you supposed to be a medical professional?”
The woman is shaking her head now, telling him to calm down.
“I don’t want to calm down, I want to see my fucking brother—yes, my brother! If that’s who he says he is, who the fuck are you to tell him differently? Now, where is he?”
“Four… four twenty-eight,” she stammers, and Sam doesn’t wait to see what else she has to say. He’s down the hall and bursting through the door in seconds flat.
Dean’s asleep, looking deceptively peaceful in the dim light of the hospital room. He’s wearing a hospital gown, and there’s an IV in his arm and bandages around his wrists.
“Dean,” Sam says softly, and the familiar big green eyes open drowsily.
“Sammy?”
“Yeah, man, it’s me, I’m here. How’re you feeling?”
“Sammy,” Dean says again, his expression fond, momentarily unguarded. “’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
Dean looks more awake now, and he grimaces as he shifts position. “I don’t know.”
Sam sits down on the side of the bed and reaches for the hand that doesn’t have a tube in it.
“Not good enough. You need to be honest with me, man. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. I—please? Just tell me.”
The “please” is a low blow, and he knows it. Dean sighs and turns his head away. That alone tells Sam that he’s going to try to talk; it will be easier that way.
“I tried, Sam. I tried to be okay with it, I really did. I had a lot of hot lesbian sex. I flirted my way into gettin’ a shitload of free stuff… I even tried it with a dude…”
Dean glances back at Sam when he says it, and Sam tries to compose his face into something calm and not something that looks like either shock or jealous anger. Dean did it with a guy? Because he’s a girl, does he think he should be attracted to men now?
“Uh-huh,” he says, so Dean will know he’s listening.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Dean says, his voice quiet. “It’s just—it’s not me, Sam. It’s not my body, it’s not—nothing feels right. It’s not right. I’m not right.”
“I know it’s gotta be hard,” Sam tries, and it sounds so lame. What can he say? He doesn’t know.
“I can’t be something I’m not; I just—I can’t look in the mirror without hating myself!”
Dean’s wide awake now, his eyes wet with unshed tears.
“I just wanted it gone, I wanted it all gone—I wanted to be me again. I can’t be this, Sam, I just can’t…”
“Okay, okay,” Sam says, although clearly nothing is. “We’ll figure it out, I swear, we’ll figure it out. You just—you can’t give up on me, man. Okay?”
Dean nods, and he looks so young and vulnerable it twists Sam’s heart in his chest.
“Can you get me outta here? They don’t—I don’t think they believe me.”
Anger lances through Sam again, but he pushes it down. “Yeah, let’s get outta here. But you’re letting me check your stitches later.”
Dean dresses in the bathroom. When he comes out, he has the hospital gown wrapped around him, too, like he doesn’t want Sam to see him. He slumps against the window of Sam’s rental car while Sam drives, lashes dark fans on his cheeks. They check into the first motel they find.
Dean lies down before Sam can order him to; he doesn’t protest when Sam pulls off the hospital gown and eases up his tank top. A few of the dressings have leaked through, small spots of blood on the white. Dean doesn’t flinch when Sam tugs off the tape and removes them.
It’s hard to see the jagged cuts on Dean’s chest, the deepest circling one breast like he was trying to cut it off. There are gashes on his forearms and thighs, too, and one low on his stomach.
“What were you trying to do?” Sam asks quietly as he changes the dressing. Dean has underwear on, but he’s pulled it down low so Sam can work.
“I don’t know. I just wanted it gone, all of it. Everything that’s not mine.”
Sam nods. “How far did you go?”
Dean looks away. “Not that far. Couldn’t do it. Wanted to.”
“Wanted to what, Dean? What did you want to do?”
“I don’t even know,” Dean admits, his voice small. “I just wanted to cut, wanted to make it all as ugly on the outside as it feels to me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t ask for this, and it’s not your fault. You are who you are.”
Dean flinches at that, more than he did when Sam uncovered his stitched wounds.
“I never knew it was that important, you know? I thought, well, I’m a girl now, so I’ll just be a girl.”
Sam tapes down the dressing as gently as he can. “I don’t think it works like that, Dean. I’m not sure you can talk yourself into being okay with being something you’re not.”
“Guess not,” Dean agrees quietly. “I tried.”
Sam wants badly to kiss him. Dean’s looking at him again, eyes big and green and full of need—for Sam’s understanding. “I know you did,” he says instead. “I haven’t given up on fixing this.”
Dean is silent for a second, and then his expression softens. “And if you can’t?”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
It feels different than every time he’s said it before.
* * *
Dean’s body heals. He’s got scars on his thighs and a jagged red one on his stomach. He cuts his hair short again and digs his old flannel shirts out of the bag in the trunk and wears them over tight tee shirts that flatten his chest. It’s September, the nights crisp enough to warrant two shirts anyway. He rolls up the sleeves during the day, and Sam looks at the crisscrossing lines on his arms and thinks how lucky he is that Dean’s still beside him. That it doesn’t matter to him what Dean looks like; he’s still Dean.
Dean works out more than he ever did before. They run in the morning, Sam pacing himself to Dean’s shorter stride. He takes target practice whenever they can find a safe place, relearning the aim of his own guns and the way his body absorbs the kick differently.
“Spar with me,” Dean insists when it’s almost November. He’s not as strong as Sam—not as strong as he used to be—but he makes up for it by twisting like a wildcat with a flexibility he never had before. Sam’s caught off guard and Dean laughs at him, sitting on Sam’s chest breathless and giddy with a moment of power.
Dean never looks in the mirror.
Sam waits for him to go out and pick someone up, but he never does. Sam is secretly pleased, and feels like shit for it.
Sam doesn’t go out, either. He jerks off in the shower, as quietly as he can. He assumes that’s Dean’s alone time, too, and never knocks on the door when the water’s running.
They take a new case in December.
It’s a salt and burn, and it goes off like clockwork. The ghost doesn’t so much as graze them, the nice young couple who would’ve been goners are grateful, and then Dean is holding a flaming book of matches over the grave, grinning. There’s mud on his face, and smeared across one of his arms, and he looks more content than Sam has seen him in a very long time.
Back at the motel, Sam sits down on one of the beds to pull off his muddy boots.
“Did you see the look on its face?” Dean exclaims. He strips off his muddy shirts and jeans and kicks off his boots, too. “I mean, it never saw us coming!”
Dean’s standing there in his tight white tee shirt and briefs, a smile on his face, when Sam looks up.
It still surprises Sam, sometimes, that Dean looks like that. Maybe more now that they’re back to hunting.
Dean doesn’t move, and Sam drops his gaze, a blush heating his face. So he doesn’t see Dean walk toward him until suddenly he’s standing right there, close enough to touch.
“Sammy,” Dean says, and the tone of his voice sends shivers down Sam’s spine. “What that witch said, that you wanted…”
Ohgod, this can’t be happening. Sam is frozen, afraid to move. Dean can’t be saying what it sounds like.
“If you do,” Dean’s saying, “if you do want… this… you wouldn’t be the only one.”
Sam looks up at that, shocked into forgetting that he shouldn’t. “What?”
Dean’s holding his gaze, a pink blush on his cheeks and his eyes dark. “I said, you wouldn’t be the only one.”
Dean picks up Sam’s hand and places it on his waist, and Sam is struck by how small Dean’s hand is in his own. Dean’s skin is soft, warm. Goosebumps rise under Sam’s palm as he smooths it over the curve of Dean’s hip, and Dean makes a soft sound. “It’s okay,” Dean murmurs, reading Sam’s mind.
Sam’s thumb slips under the band of Dean’s underwear, and Dean shifts restlessly. He puts his hand over Sam’s and slides their joined fingers slowly down, over the scar that’s still there. Sam’s fingertips push into the silky curls below and Dean chokes off a hurt sound.
“You can,” he whispers, like they need to be secret about this, like there’s someone there to hide from. “You can.”
It’s everything Sam’s ever dreamt of in his darkest fantasies, and yet it’s not. It’s so different, so hard to believe this is Dean, that Sam is getting his dream come true even if it looks and smells and feels so different.
Dean pushes their joined hands lower, and ohgod Dean is wet and it’s been forever and Sam’s head is spinning like he’s drunk, fingertips sliding in on instinct. He pushes Dean’s underwear aside, lets Dean guide him deeper. Dean’s thighs are trembling, and Sam needs to hear Dean make that sound again, like Sam’s fingers are putting him in agony, like he can’t stand it.
“Please,” Dean whispers, something he never says, and Sam still can’t believe Dean wants this; why would he want this? Because Sam’s the only one he trusts? Sam’s thoughts derail as Dean slides onto Sam’s lap, his bare thighs spread wide around Sam’s legs, the swell of his breasts in Sam’s face.
“Dean,” Sam gasps, a reminder to them both.
It doesn’t matter. Dean bucks and pushes against Sam’s hand, needy, circling his hips and yanking his tee shirt over his head until there’s nothing in the way of Sam’s face against his breasts.
Sam has thought about this, about taking one of Dean’s small pink nipples in his mouth and worrying at it with his teeth, when Dean’s chest was still flat. Dean used to pinch them when he jerked off, gasping every time he touched himself, so Sam knows it’s a hot spot. Or it used to be. He wonders if that’s changed.
He leans forward to nuzzle between them, then licks tentatively over one bud.
“Ohgod, yes, oh shit yes,” Dean babbles, holding Sam’s head right there with both hands. “Suck it, yes, harder,” he pleads, and Sam does. It’s so much weirder than he thought it would be, no matter that he’s done this with more than one woman. This is his big brother, who has been the closest thing he has to a mother, and Sam’s nursing like a baby while Dean’s riding his fingers, and Sam’s cock is so hard it’s about to burst through his zipper.
“I’m gonna come, ohgod don’t stop, Sam, don’t you fuckin’ stop,” Dean pants, grinding against the heel of Sam’s hand while Sam’s fingers go deep. He cries out when he climaxes, and Sam teases him through it, pulling back to watch Dean’s face go slack with pleasure, lashes fluttering closed. It’s so close to what Sam has wanted to see forever, Sam could almost believe he’ll be splattered in his brother’s come when he looks down.
Dean’s thighs are shaking hard. Breathless and flushed, he finally relaxes. He bends forward and leans his forehead against Sam’s.
“Well, fuck,” he says.
“Good?” Sam asks, surprised to hear his voice come out sounding wrecked.
“Yeah,” Dean says, still catching his breath. “Been a while.”
Sam is fine with only this, more than he ever dreamt of having. But then Dean’s hands are at his zipper and Sam has to bite his own lip to keep from shouting. Dean’s touching him. Dean is touching him.
“You don’t have to,” Sam says, but Dean doesn’t hesitate or answer. Instead, he unbuckles Sam’s belt easily and pops the snap. Sam’s cock springs up as soon as his zipper is down, and Dean takes a moment to look.
For one stomach-flipping second, Sam thinks, Shit, he doesn’t have one anymore. How can Dean do this, when this is how he wishes he still looked?
“Dean, you don’t—”
That shakes Dean out of whatever he was thinking. He stands up to urge Sam out of his pants, kicking them out of the way impatiently, and then pushes him to sit back down. He hesitates for a moment, looking at Sam’s cock standing up stiff and eager, and Sam almost loses his nerve. But then Dean smiles and slips his soaked panties off. Naked, he sits back down across Sam’s thighs. When he spreads his legs Sam can see the wetness there, and his cock jumps; he can’t help it. Sam came to terms a long time ago with the fact that he sometimes likes men (especially his brother), but he’s been with too many women not to have an instinctive reaction to the evidence of Dean’s readiness.
“I know,” Dean says, and then he wraps his small, slim hand around Sam’s dick and begins to stroke him, watching Sam’s face intently. That look of concentration and desire pushes Sam’s excitement even higher. Dean wants him; it’s clear in his face, in the twist of his open mouth and the darkness of his eyes. Sam has never considered that this might go both ways, but maybe now it does. Now that Dean isn’t exactly his brother, maybe it does.
Sam is instantly, embarrassingly, close. He’s leaking all over Dean’s pumping hand, biting his lip to keep from groaning with how good it is.
“Don’t come yet,” Dean whispers, and Sam shakes his head, fingers gripping the bedspread.
“I can’t, it’s too much, I can’t.”
Dean lets him go and Sam nearly cries, but it’s only to grab a condom from his duffel and slide it down Sam’s length.
“Wait, are you—are you sure you—”
That’s all Sam gets out before Dean is straddling his legs again and sitting down and Sam is nearly blacking out because holy fucking shit, what the fuck are they doing? This is for real, too real.
Dean’s as overcome as he is, his eyes practically rolling up in his head as he slides all the way down and then wraps his legs around Sam’s hips.
“Ohgod, feels so fucking good,” Dean whines, trying to get some leverage to move. “C’mon, Sam, come on.”
Sam doesn’t need to be told twice. He can’t even think straight all buried up in Dean’s wet heat, and his hips move of their own accord. Dean hangs on for the wild ride, moaning, his breasts bouncing as Sam jolts him up and down.
“You gonna come again?” Sam wants him to, wants it desperately.
“Yeah, yeah, gonna come again, make me come, Sammy…”
It’s just dirty enough to push Sam over the edge. He loses it as Dean cries out again, loud and uninhibited, his thighs wrapped tightly around Sam’s hips.
When Sam comes back to himself, Dean is still on his lap, his head leaning on Sam’s shoulder as he breathes hard. Sam runs a hand down his brother’s back, feeling the knobs of his spine, the softness of his skin. There’s sweat gathered in the dip of his back. A rush of protectiveness makes Sam warm all over as he runs his fingers through it, spreading the wetness over the round swell of Dean’s ass.
“You okay?”
Dean snorts and stands up, making Sam yelp at the abrupt separation.
“Of course I’m okay,” he snaps, grabbing his underwear and tee shirt from the floor and retreating to the bathroom.
He’s gone so quickly he might as well have shouted, I’m lying.
Sam changes into a tee shirt and sweats and leaves the light on, waiting for Dean to come out of the bathroom. He hears the shower come on and go off, and ten more minutes go by. Dean is hoping Sam will be sound asleep and the room will be dark when he comes out, Sam knows. Another ten minutes and finally his brother’s patience wears thin or his need for sleep wins out.
“There a reason you aren’t sleeping?” Dean asks, though he already knows the answer.
Sam is sitting on the side of his bed.
Dean sighs and crawls into the other one, pulling the sheets up almost to his chin. “Fuck’s sake, Sam, what is it? I can tell you’re not gonna let me get any sleep until you get something off your chest.”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about we talk about the fact that we just had sex?”
Even Sam is shocked that it came out that way. Dean’s eyes are wide open now, but he’s staring at the ceiling.
“You regret it?”
Sam shakes his head. “No.” It’s the truth, god help him.
“Me neither,” pronounces Dean, still looking at the ceiling. “So, case closed, let’s get some shut-eye.”
“But you don’t even—you’ve never—I mean, this is because of the curse, Dean. That explains it for you, but me… this just makes me a creep who’s taking advantage of what happened to you or something.”
Dean rolls to his side and looks at Sam. Nothing like Sam being down on himself to make Dean pay attention.
“That’s why I made the first move, so you couldn’t think that.”
“But, Dean—”
Dean raises himself on one elbow. “Look, Sam, it’s different being in this body, okay? I can’t go out there and pick up random dudes and ask them to fuck me, it’s too… I just can’t. I can’t be that vulnerable or whatever, I don’t know. I don’t know how chicks do it! And it was fun to be with girls, but man, I don’t know, I felt… I felt like I was deceiving them or something. They thought they were with another girl, but I’m not. I don’t know, it just… Everything feels wrong to me, Sam. Everything.”
Sam finds himself inexplicably tearful. “I know. I mean, I can imagine.”
“Except this.”
Sam blinks. “Everything feels wrong except fucking your brother?”
Dean huffs a humorless laugh. “Nobody ever said I wasn’t fucked up.”
“Nobody ever said I wasn’t, either. And I’m not even cursed.”
Dean sighs. “So can I sleep now? Two orgasms kinda take it outta me.”
Sam turns off the light. He listens to Dean roll over, squirming around to get comfortable the same way he always has.
“I didn’t think you liked sleeping with guys,” Sam says a few minutes later. Dean doesn’t answer, either because he’s fallen asleep or because he can’t dispute it.
It’s the curse, Sam thinks, and the thought makes his stomach turn. Dean wouldn’t want this if it weren’t for the curse. Wouldn’t want Sam. What does that make Sam, that he’s willing to do it anyway?
It’s three weeks before it happens again. Sam is nervous every night, alternating between making sure he’s in bed before Dean and trying to stay up until Dean gets into bed. Half the time he doesn’t know if he’s hoping Dean will start something or dreading it. It still feels wrong, but Sam would be lying if he said he didn’t get butterflies every time Dean smiles at him.
Not that he smiles very often. He tries to be “normal,” whatever that is. He listens to Metallica in the car and refuses to consider anything more modern. He won’t let Sam drive unless he’s literally falling asleep at the wheel. When they hunt, he still wants to take the lead and have Sam follow—and Sam still wants to let him.
Two nights after they kill a skinwalker without a scratch on either of them, they’re in a bar in west Texas, tossing back beers and watching two girls in short shorts and cowboy boots dance together, along with every other man in the place. Sam is loose from too many beers and the luxury of a little time between hunts, and even Dean is more relaxed than he usually is in public.
“Gonna hit the head, be right back.”
Dean grunts an acknowledgement, and Sam is on his way back no more than three minutes later. Dean is no longer relaxed.
In fact, he’s in the process of punching a guy in the face. Unfortunately, the guy has two friends who move more quickly than you’d expect for the amount of drinking they’ve been doing.
“Whoa there, little girl,” one of them says, and they’ve got Dean with both arms pinned behind his head. The flannel shirt he had on is on the floor, and his breasts are clearly visible under his tight white tee shirt. He kicks out, but all three evade his boots, and the first guy straightens, holding a hand to his nose.
“Little firecracker, ain’t ya,” he says, laughing as he wipes the blood away. “We like ’em like that, don’t we, boys?”
He gets up in Dean’s face and gropes his chest, leering. Sam catches Dean’s eye then, and the rage he sees there takes his breath away. If Dean were free, Sam has no doubt all three men would be dead. He has to think quickly, because they don’t need a triple murder on their hands. Sam won’t be able to do a curse cure if Dean’s in jail.
“Let her go.”
Dean gapes in shock; it’s the first time Sam has used that pronoun. It stings on Sam’s tongue, and he can tell it cuts Dean to the core.
The bloody-nosed asshole turns around, quickly taking in Sam’s height and the size of his shoulders. His eyes drop to where Sam’s hand is on the gun shoved into the back of his pants.
Asshole isn’t stupid. He steps back and holds his hands out in the universal gesture of acquiescence. “Hey, no harm no foul, dude, we didn’t know she was taken. Let her go, fellas, I guess this here’s her man.”
“Dean,” Sam warns, “Just—let’s get out of here, okay?”
The guys let him go and back away. Sam has his hand over Dean’s where it’s on his gun.
“Don’t, Dean, please. We can’t afford you landing in jail.”
“They—” Dean’s voice is strangled, agonized.
“I saw. I know, but it’s not worth it. C’mon, please, let’s just go.”
Dean lets Sam take his arm and half push him toward the door, but it’s a near thing. He gets in the passenger side and slams the door, and Sam can feel the fury radiating off him. He doesn’t trust himself to drive, and that’s a rarity.
Sam drives in silence for ten miles, hoping that will give Dean time to calm down.
“They were assholes,” he tries, but Dean interrupts him.
“Don’t you ever fucking call me that again.”
“I just wanted to get them away from you, that’s all.”
“Never again,” Dean repeats, and turns away.
Sam feels sick to his stomach, and wishes he could have blown those dicks away.
Dean doesn’t talk again until they stop for the night thirty miles later. Sam catches him staring at his own reflection in the passenger-side window. He’s scowling, poking at his own voluptuous mouth with one finger like he can erase it if he tries hard enough.
When Sam was ten and Dean had hit puberty, it used to annoy the shit out of him that Dean spent so much time looking at himself. He would preen and pout in front of any mirror he could find, practicing the sultry expressions that would have girls (and sometimes grown women and men) panting after him. Sam, all awkward appendages and clumsiness while he waited to grow into his own features, hated his big brother for it. He’d give anything to see Dean proud of his looks now.
The next time Sam suggests they hit the local bar, Dean shakes his head.
“You go ahead if you want. I’m beat. Gonna watch some bad TV.” He kicks off his boots and settles on the bed near the door with the remote.
Sam remembers west Texas. “Nah, that sounds like a better idea anyway. I’ll go out for a beer run. Doritos? Salsa?”
Dean grins. “You know me so well, Sammy.”
His smile makes Sam’s stomach flip and his fucked-up dick twitch. He comes back with two different kinds of tortilla chips and salsa, and Dean’s favorite brand of beef jerky. They watch one of the Underworld movies, and Sam could almost believe things were back to normal if Dean’s head didn’t end up just the right height to fall onto Sam’s shoulder when he gets drowsy.
“Sorry,” Dean mumbles when he jerks awake, sitting up straighter.
“’sokay,” Sam says, hating the way Dean feels like he has to apologize. Hating the sudden reminder that nothing is normal, and maybe it never will be again.
Dean gets up and goes to the bathroom, then settles himself on the bed next to Sam again.
“You wanna watch something else?” Sam asks, as the credits roll.
Dean turns to look at him, and Sam’s heart lurches in his chest. Dean’s eyes are dark, smudged at the corners with that stuff Sam thought he threw away in disgust. His mouth is red and shiny, looking like an invitation to sin.
“Not really,” Dean says, and Jesus Christ, his brother is flirting with him.
Part Three
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-06-13 07:15 am (UTC)“Me neither,” pronounces Dean, still looking at the ceiling. “So, case closed, let’s get some shut-eye.”
Ha. Perfect. Dean.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-18 11:44 pm (UTC)Poor Dean. =(
no subject
Date: 2016-03-24 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-18 11:40 pm (UTC)And then he ends up in hospital when they separated. I love that Sam refused to misgender his brother. Especially Sam’s point that it didn’t matter what he looked like. The staff acted like it would have been acceptable for Dean to be transgender if he had actively been trying to pass as male, but a pretty ‘girl’ insisting ‘she’ was male was obviously a mental illness. (I’m not taking away from the fact that Dean had tried to hurt himself and did need help, but even among medical staff that kind of outdated thinking is still to prevalent.)
I really liked in the scene when they got together that even though Sam was turned on by evidence that Dean was turned on to be with him, Sam still missed the parts of Dean that had fuelled his fantasies for so many years. I also really like how confusing and frustrating the situation for Dean was, because the body he is in isn’t him, but he is always going to react to getting to be with Sam, and it’s going to feel good not because of what shape he is, but because it’s Sam he is with. And that has to be both the best and the worst thing at the same time. (Or the best thing at the time and a worse thing after maybe 🤷🏻♂️)
Oh and then the bar scene. Firstly I would have let Dean shoot them, but then yep cops would have been an issue. But Sam pulling the Big Man Protector, even if it was calculated and not what he felt, it’s just so… emasculating. And so fucking ahggggggh!
And by the end of the story I’m glad that Dean got to experience that. But at the time it’s just too close to home to be comfortable 👍🏻
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 05:31 am (UTC)